“Then why didn’t we see him?” she argued.
Tom switched both tank track electric motors to off, parking the Mole, and then suggested, “Maybe he was already out?”
“Not likely. We would have seen some sign of him at the river,” Aliana said.
“Come on, let’s get the gold,” James pestered, with a big, stupid grin.
“Are you serious?” Aliana’s eyes stared at him.
“If Sam did escape, he would have left a note or something for us on board the Mahogany Ship. Besides, I’d really like to see to what lengths Rodriguez has gone to bring us here.”
“All right,” Aliana said, “but only so we can see if Sam left us anything to go on. Then we’re back to searching for him.”
“Agreed.”
At the rear of the vehicle was a small airlock chamber, large enough to allow just one person at a time to exit the mole, in full dive gear.
James was the first to leave, followed by Aliana, and Tom agreed to stay and keep guard. If Rodriguez and his men came back while the other two were away, he said he would run them over with the mole at best, and at worst, block the entrance to the Mahogany Ship so that the others could escape.
By the time Aliana climbed through the opening in the ship, and reached the sandy area where the dozen or more footprints indicated others had been entering, she found James’s hand, reaching down to help her up.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Not a problem.”
“Any luck?”
“Yeah, I found it!” James said, showing her a number of Rodriguez’s gold coins. “This is going to really piss him off.”
“What about Sam?”
“No idea. How about you have a quick look, and I’ll load up the Mole.”
“You’re unbelievable James!” she said, deciding to look around the ship herself.
“Thanks,” James said, as he put his dive mask back on his face and dropped back into the water with a bag full of gold coins.
Aliana then looked through the first few rooms, quickly making certain that Sam wasn’t there, lying injured or worse – dead – before moving on to the next ones. It didn’t take her long to clear every room in the ship capable of being easily accessed.
At the back of the ship, she saw that a large amount of sand had intentionally been removed. Shining her flashlight on it, she immediately saw how Sam finally determined the Mahogany Ship had been a fake.
The massive wall of concrete had been buried with no more than a few feet of sand, to give the image of the back half of the ship being filled with sand.
It was time to go. Nothing more could be achieved by walking around the fake shipwreck.
“We’re out of here,” she said to James, who was hurriedly shoving the last of the gold coins in another big bag.
“Okay, can you give me a hand with the second bag? I think I might have overloaded it, and I’d hate to leave Rodriguez with one of his coins.”
Not bothering to get into another fight with the man, she picked the smaller of the two bags, and returned to the mole.
After the water was expelled from the diving hatch, Tom helped her out of her dive gear, and then said, “I’m afraid, this is where the rescue mission ends.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“See the power gauge? We’re down to 65 percent.”
“So, can’t we wait until it gets to 50 percent?”
“No, it’s going to draw a lot more power to get back up those rapids,” Tom said. “Don’t worry. We’ll come back for him.”
*
Four hours later, the three were back on the surface, and Tom drove the mole back to the helicopter, ready to be unloaded. Aliana listened as James started whistling a happy tune to himself, while loading the several bags of gold Spanish coins into a safe aboard the helicopter.
“Damn it, James, you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
He stopped whistling and replied, “And why shouldn’t I be? Traversing a grade six black water run, in a cross between a tank and a submarine, while stealing gold from a rich asshole – and you know that gold is always one of the most favorite things to rich people, and I should know.”
“You forgot the part about not being able to rescue your son, or have you forgotten?”
James looked amused, and said, “No, of course not, how could I? You kept reminding me of it every few hours.” He then opened a prepacked lunchbox containing more than twenty sandwiches, and said, “Lunch anyone? I’m starving.”
“Shouldn’t we be back down there trying to find your son?”
“And why should we do that?”
“Jesus, James, don’t you care for your son’s wellbeing, even just a little?”
“Of course I do… but I’m sure he’s quite capable of coming out on his own. Honestly, sometimes I think you don’t really know my son at all, do you?”
“How can you be so uncaring, and yet so certain that he will make it out on his own?”
James smiled at her, only the slightest guilt visible. “Because he’s already done so.”
“Sam’s already out of the subterranean waterway?” Aliana asked, too stunned by the news, to be angry.
“Yes, got out a couple days ago.”
“What do you mean, ‘he got out a couple days ago?’ We’ve been searching for him the past two days, and I was worried sick that he was dead. You knew he was out, but still we went in to get the gold!”
“Yeah, something like that. If it makes you feel better, Sam told me to.”
“He told you to. Really?”
“Well, he did say to make sure to keep you safe and hidden, while he was away. So I thought, why not make Rodriguez pay in the process?”
“I thought he was dead, you fucking asshole!” Aliana, for the third time in as many days, since meeting up with James, was ready to kill him. “Hang on. You said while he’s away… where the hell has he gone?”
“Longjiang, China, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” she agreed facetiously. “What the hell’s he doing there?”
“Elise sent him.”
“Why did she send him there?” Aliana paused, as she heard the words in her own ears. “And who’s Elise?”
James smiled, speaking slowly as he would to a small child, while explaining something complex. “He’s gone to meet a man name Jie Qiang, who might just know exactly where the Mahogany Ship was left.”
“And what about the other one… the woman you mentioned?”
James stared at her, amusement on his face at her concern at the mention of another woman. “And Elise is a computer whiz that my son hired years ago. She used to consult for the NSA and the FBI until a disagreement on the term ‘freedom of information’ made her resign – but not without leaving a backdoor into their computer systems, granting her unhindered, and untraceable, access to an immeasurable amount of information.”
“Okay… so why does Elise think Jie Qiang knows where the Mahogany Ship was left?”
“Because one of his ancestors built it, while the other executed the last man to return from its fatal voyage.”
Chapter Seventeen
Sam took a commercial flight to China, using a local carrier, and under an alias passport that Elise had prepared for him. He read the email again on the long flight, and recalled the conversation he’d had with the man. Sam had almost deleted the message the first time he saw it, concerned that it might be a ruse orchestrated by Michael Rodriguez or one of his men.
The email had been titled “In the unlikely event you haven’t been murdered yet.”
He then had Elise look into the email account and run a check on where the message had originated. Determining that it had come from Longjiang, in the northern province of Heilongjiang of the People's Republic of China, she then discovered that the original sender came from a small fishing village, with no known ties to Michael Rodriguez. The only notable history that she could find on the man, was that his entire family had been murdered two
years ago.
Elise had suggested he read the letter, and then contact the man through an intermediary.
Sam had read the letter carefully.
Then read it again.
He remembered thinking that, if it was a ruse, it certainly was a very clever one.
By the time he’d finished the conversation, Sam had decided that he must fly directly to meet the man in Longjiang.
Arriving at Qiqihar Sanjiazi Airport, Sam quickly cleared customs, and then took a taxi to a park in Longjiang, overlooking the water of the Long River.
He paid the taxi driver and then, taking out three times the requested fee, asked the driver to wait for him. The driver, staring at the money, assured him he would wait.
Sam walked through the park until he reached two sets of tourist chairs. Sitting down, he examined the large river ahead. Within minutes, another man came and sat next to him.
“The river’s very pretty today, isn’t it?” Sam said to the stranger.
“It is, but… I do not think I would like to go for swim,” the man replied, in broken English, confirming that he was the man Sam was looking for.
Sam turned to face the man and said, “Okay, Mr. Jie Qiang. You have my attention; how did you know I was about to be murdered?”
“Because, the man who murdered my family had already gotten what he wanted from you.”
“And what was that?”
“Your father’s attention,” Jie Qiang replied.
“So he thought he could ransom me?”
“No, nothing of the kind. He knew that if you advertised the fact that the Mahogany Ship had been discovered, your father would come there to see it. And your father, Michael knew, was the only man on earth who held the key to finding the real Mahogany Ship.”
“But that’s crazy. My father doesn’t know how to find it. He and I both tried ten years ago, and after many months, accepted that it was nothing more than a fabled story.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“If that’s so, where’s your father now?”
A cold shiver went down Sam’s spine, as he thought about the question. His father had taken an unusual fatherly interest in his safety, while looking into the Mahogany Ship. He even felt loved when he called his father for help, only to discover that the man was already in Bendigo.
Dad, what were you already doing there?
Jie Qiang looked at his face, and said, “So, your father’s already come to Australia, as Michael planned.”
Sam ignored the question and then asked, “Why would Michael believe my father could help him find the real Mahogany Ship?”
“Not the ship, only her most valuable possession.”
“And what made Michael think that my father could help him in his search for it?”
“The fact that your father was in possession of a map that showed him precisely where it was, but he lacked the ability to locate the first identifying symbol on the map.”
“And Michael knows where that first symbol is?”
“Yes, Michael paid me a small fortune to receive my map to it.”
“How is it that you came to know where the Mahogany Ship met her demise?”
“Because one of my ancestors built it, while the other executed the last man to sail her,” Jie Qiang replied.
“Okay, if that’s the case, tell me, what was the most valuable thing the Mahogany Ship was carrying?”
“A secret weapon,” the man had answered immediately. “A scepter with the ability to destroy anything in its path with intense heat, reflected from the sun.”
“So you’re not lying. Okay, you have my attention. Why is it that you’re now willing to betray Michael?”
“Two years ago I sold him the original map, taken from a man known only as Rat Catcher, a eunuch slave, who was the last person to see the Mahogany Ship, firmly stuck miles inland, in the large landmass that we now know to be Australia. He had returned to China to get reinforcements.”
“Did those reinforcements ever come?”
“No, he was executed for crimes against the emperor. Before his death, he left one of my great ancestors with this detailed map of where it lay stranded, along with his journal from the original voyage. Of course, by this stage the Yongle Emperor had passed. His successor, the Hongxi Emperor, had ordered the suspension of Zheng He's maritime expeditions and destruction of the remaining giant Treasure Ships, due to their rising cost and the need to divert soldiers to fight off the constant attacks from the north. With the giant ships no longer making expeditions, it was impossible for anyone to return to this far away land to find the weapon of mythical powers.”
“But someone kept the map.”
“My ancestors knew the value of the map and left it for each generation in the hope that one day, someone would retrieve the weapon.”
“What happened when you sold Rodriguez the map?”
“I returned home from work one day to find my wife and three children all dead in their beds, and a message – ‘Followed your map, no sign of the Mahogany Ship or the weapon. I suggest you take better care when providing information in the future.’”
Sam didn’t know what to say to comfort the man. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
Sam listened to the man’s demands, a smile creeping across his face. “Yes, Mr. Jie Qiang, we have a deal.”
With that, Mr. Jie Qiang handed over the copy of the map and a journal of one of the most wretched slaves to have ever sailed aboard the Mahogany Ship.
Chapter Eighteen
Sam Reilly read and then re-read the poor man’s journal more than a dozen times on the long flight back to Australia.
Next to the old Chinese text were a number of pages, typed on A4 paper and stapled together. They were the best translation Jie Qiang could produce.
He flicked through the pages until he reached the earliest entry that seemed to connect to the story in which he was most interested…
*
Mid Atlantic Ocean – March 5, 1442
My name is Rat Catcher, and on this day I stood watch at the top of the giant crow’s nest, scanning the horizon for any glimpse of land. At little over four feet, I am by far the smallest man aboard, but my near perfect eyesight has earned me the position on top of the tallest of our ship’s eight masts.
Rat Catcher is not my real name, of course.
I have no idea what name my father once gave me. Nor do I know what name my grandfather once gave my own father. The place in which the battle took place, and the cause for which they had fought, were both just as unfamiliar to me. I do not even know what my age was when all of this took place.
What I do know is that my father lost, and as a consequence, I was captured. Too young to be discarded in death, I was castrated, as the custom would deem sensible, so that I may never seed their enemies, and then sold into slavery.
Unable to recall how far I traveled since that day, I can only imagine that it must be some great distance, as my personal features appear so completely different than those who surrounded me in this new life.
I am short and despite an extraordinary appetite, remain skinny, although what weight I have is derived from wiry lean muscle. My eyes are a weak blue color and my skin vulnerably fair compared with those around me, so that it burns every day when I work on the deck.
I’ve been traded a number of times as my other masters feared that their possession was inherently weak and would shortly die.
By the time I reached a puberty that would never fully come, I was purchased by my current master, who I’ve since been told only did so because he thought that I could be trained to fetch rats from the tiny spaces within the hold of his ship.
My master immediately named me Rat Catcher.
More than twenty years has passed since that day, and I now know that my master has grown fond of me, and often calls me by it with some affection. I’ve sailed with my master across nearly all the seas and visited many lands, although in that tim
e I’ve never seen people who look quite like myself.
As the years progressed, my master discovered that while I was small and physically weak, I was mentally stronger than any he’d ever met. Being small had given me the opportunity of necessity to be quick of hand and to devise the some of the most unique solutions. Together, I’ve helped my master claim many lands for his own master.
All men have masters – those who believe they don’t are lying only to themselves.
By comparison to myself, my master was a giant. Almost seven feet tall I have heard, and he’s won many battles and become a master over the sea. Despite all the lands that he had either befriended or conquered, my master’s homeland was under a great siege from a foe who had been fighting them since anyone could remember.
There was some fear that if any more warriors left the homeland, then it might fall victim to the invaders.
In fear of losing the sea that he had come to love dearly, my master chose to take his three greatest ships across the largest of the known oceans in the hope that he might discover a power strong enough to beat his enemies completely.
An old seaman’s tale spoke of a people who lived on the other side of the vast ocean who held a weapon so powerful that it could strike an entire army down in one blow. Although, how my master heard of such a story was beyond me, given that no one in living memory had ever crossed the ocean and having done so, returned again.
It was for this purpose that my master led just three ships across the ocean, further from my master’s homeland than any of his people had ever traveled. They carried gifts to bring friendship to any civilizations he should meet. And many soldiers to enforce it with powerful weapons.
After nearly three months at sea we landed at the inlet of a strange new land.
Sam skimmed the next few entries, which broadly related to replenishing their food supplies, water, and maintenance of the three ships, until he found what he was after.
New Land, West of the Atlantic. May 31, 1442
After nearly a week of sailing north along the foreign shores, I stood on top of the crow’s nest and stared at the monstrosity in the distance. It was a pyramid made of solid rock construction, and looked like a fortress that had proven its ability to defend itself for thousands of years.
The Mahogany Ship (Sam Reilly Book 2) Page 16
